The EEG

Here is just a little about Kaitlyn's EEG last week. It was just a basic EEG, which meant that Kaitlyn could be awake or asleep and she could also eat. She did need to be still though, so I swaddled her really tight and gave her a binky. The lady doing the EEG first put little marks all over Kaitlyn's head and then used an exfoliant to help the electrodes stay in place. Kaitlyn hated this part. After the exfoliant, the lady used something sticky to keep the electrodes (there were 36 of them, plus two others to measure her heart rate and pulse which they put on her chest) in place. She also taped them down, anticipating Kaitlyn being a bit of a wiggle worm.

Kaitlyn did fine at first, but she kept looking around and trying to figure out what was going on. Everytime she heard a noise she turned, which sometimes pulled an electrode off. After awhile, they had Kaitlyn look a bright flashing light, it got faster and faster until it was almost like a strobe light. Poor Kaitlyn was so confused and didn't really know what to do, but she never cried. After the lights, the lady told me that she needed Kaitlyn to close her eyes. Right--she was wide awake at this point (wouldn't you be?) and there was no chance that she was just going to contentedly close her eyes so we could do the test. So, I had to hold her face still while the lady covered her eyes. This resulted in Kaitlyn screaming and screaming, which resulted in a very unclear EEG. The neurologist said it was very hard to discern anything from it, but it was good enough for him to tell that there was so seizure activity.

So, a near pointless test for a pointless reason, but good news all the same. I'll take it.